''Brothers'' is a

1977 Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic R ...

American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by Arthur Barron and produced by Edward Lewis and Mildred Lewis. It stars

Bernie Casey Bernard Terry Casey (June 8, 1939 – September 19, 2017) was an American actor, poet and professional American football player. Early life Casey was born in Wyco, West Virginia, the son of Flossie (Coleman) and Frank Leslie Casey. He graduated ...

Vonetta McGee Vonetta Lawrence McGee (January 14, 1945 – July 9, 2010) was an American actress. She debuted in the Spaghetti Western ''The Great Silence'' and went on to appear in blaxploitation films such as ''Hammer'', ''Melinda'', ''Blacula'', ''Shaft ...

Ron O'Neal Ron O'Neal (September 1, 1937 – January 14, 2004) was an American actor, director and screenwriter, who rose to fame in his role as Youngblood Priest, a New York cocaine dealer, in the blaxploitation film '' Super Fly'' (1972) and its seq ...

John Lehne John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

Stu Gilliam Stewart Byron "Stu" Gilliam (July 27, 1933
datalounge.com; accessed July 21, 2018. – October 11, 2 ...

Renny Roker Renny Roker is a promoter and actor. As a promoter, he has been involved in both music and sport. He also ran various record labels with his brother Wally Roker in the 1970s. As an actor his career which really started in the 1960s has carried on ...

, Owen Pace, Dwan Smith and Martin St. Judge in the lead roles. The film parallels the real life stories of Black radicals

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of ...

, George Jackson, and Jonathan Jackson. This film's music is composed by

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...

Plot summary

The film begins with the events surrounding the arrest and conviction of David Thomas on trumped up charges of armed robbery. He is sentenced to " one year to life" in prison. He is soon sent to Mendocino Prison, a facility described as "our number one concentration camp for Black" by David's brother, Josh. In prison David is subjected to overt racism, violence, and mistreatment by guards and the administration. His cellmate, Walter Nance, provides David with a radical political education. Soon David starts organizing prisoners to fight back against the racist oppression. He starts a clandestine newsletter which is distributed and read by Black prisoners. At the same time, Josh is working on supporting his brother in prison. Josh goes to visit Paula Jones, a revolutionary Black professor. As a result of Josh's entreaties Paula begins reading David's writings and the two begin correspondence. Paula begins to mobilize support for the brothers in Mendocino. She also begins to fall in love with David. After a guard murders of one of the Black prisoners, the prisoners rebel. During the rebellion a guard is thrown to his death from the prison's third tier. Guards frame David and two other radical Black prisoners for the killing. During a court hearing, Josh pulls out a pistol and takes the prosecuting attorney and judge as hostages. He flees the courthouse and into a van. He is gunned down in the parking lot. In the gunfire the judge and prosecutor are also killed. Paula, at the urging of her colleagues, decides to flee and go underground out of fear of prosecution for allegedly aiding and abetting the courthouse actions. She changes her appearance and location but is captured, likely because of a snitch. Sometime later, at Mendocino Prison, guards engineer an

agent provocateur An agent provocateur () is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit, an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act, so as to ruin the reputation of, or entice legal action against, the ...

to pretend to start an armed riot. The guards' plan seems to be to use this as an excuse to assassinate David. David realizes this and attempts to take the situation into his own hands. Tragically, he is gunned down in the prison yard. The film ends, rather saccharinely, with all the Mendocino prisoners walking into the chow hall in racially solidarity and sitting together. The racist guards staring slack jawed and afraid. The plot tracks closely to the real life events from the mid-1960 to early 1970 including the Marin County Civic Center rebellion, the founding of the

Black Guerilla Family The Black Guerrilla Family (BGF, also known as the Black Family, the Black Vanguard, and Jamaa) is an African-American black power prison and street gang founded in 1966 by George Jackson, George "Big Jake" Lewis, and W. L. Nolen while they wer ...

, the writings of George Jackson including ''Blood in My Eye'' and ''Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson'', and the case of the

Soledad Brothers The Soledad Brothers were three inmates charged with the murder of a prison guard, John Vincent Mills, at California's Soledad Prison on January 16, 1970. George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Clutchette were alleged to have murdered Mills in ...

Cast

as David Thomas *

as Paula Jones *

as Walter Nance * John Lehne as McGee *

Stu Gilliam Stewart Byron "Stu" Gilliam (July 27, 1933
datalounge.com; accessed July 21, 2018. – October 11, 2 ...

as Robinson *

as Lewis * Owen Pace as Joshua * Dwan Smith as Kendra * Martin St. Judge as Williams * Al Turner as Henry Taylor * Samantha Harper as Joan Kline * Carl M. Craig as Jack Browning * Sam Nudell as Attorney Sirrell * Jim Swoopes as Sen. Billings *

Dick Yarmy Dick Yarmy (February 14, 1933 – May 5, 1992) was an American actor. He appeared in numerous films and television shows throughout the 1960s to the 1990s. Biography Yarmy was born in New York in 1933, son of William Yarmy and his wife, Cons ...

as District Attorney Wayne * Charles Ricardo Brown as Horton * Susan Barrister as Tina * Alphonso Williams as Bill * Oliver Fletcher as Lacy * Sidney Galanty as Balaban * Joseph Havener as Warden * Cynthia Songé as Staff Girl * Mercedes Alberti as Female Guard *

John Zaremba John Zaremba (October 22, 1908 – December 15, 1986) was an American actor most noted for supporting roles on science fiction films and television series. The Chicago-born Zaremba was a journalist for the ''Grand Rapids Press'' and ''Chicago T ...

* Robert Cortes

Release

''Brothers'' was released in theatres on August 3, 1977. The film was released on VHS on September 1, 1998 by

Warner Home Video Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the home video distribution division of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video ...

References

External links

* * * * * 1970s English-language films 1977 films 1977 drama films American drama films Warner Bros. films 1970s American films {{1970s-drama-film-stub